Strategy 4 - Graphic Organizers
The use of graphic organizers in the classroom is not a new idea. Many teachers in all content areas use this simple tool to help students with their reading comprehension. Graphic organizers, like students, come in all kinds of shapes and sizes; however, it is up to the teacher to discover the type that works best with each student. Here are a few examples of the variety of graphic organizers:
-Venn Diagram
-Word Chart
-Cause and Effect
-Timeline
-Sequencing
-Spider Map
-KWL Chart
Each of these organizers are easy to find and print from a multitude of websites.
In the article, "The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words" authors Sharon Pitcher, Gilda Martinez, Elizabeth Dicembre, Darlene Fewster and Montana McCormick investigated adolescent literacy with emphasis of English-language learners, special education, secondary education, parent involvment, and curriculum development. Their article displays case studies of seven individuals in middle school class settings from urban and suburban schools. Each child was uniquely different in their needs and deficiencies in regards to literacy and each student was provided specialized instruction from a reading clinic. One commonality I found was that the instructors had each student use a Graphic Organizer to help them clarify and retain information. For example, Andrew was enrolled in 8th grade and had problems reading since 1st grade. Andrew read below grade level and stuggled greatly with comprehension of the text. The authors discovered: "In the reading clinic, Andrew learned comprehension strategies using sticky notes and visual organizers. His comprehension improved during his first experience in the reading clinic, which he was able to demonstrate when he returned."
So what can today's teachers and future educators take away from this? If you have a student in your classroom who is struggling with reading and comprehension, try using graphic organizers. The first few times, work closely with the student and guide them in using the organizer and then advance them to working on it alone. One of the best organizers I found is the KWL chart. This is a simplistic chart divided into three columns: Know, Want to Know, and Learned. The students read the text assigned to them and fill out the chart as they read. Before reading the text, the student is challenged to write down all the information they know about the specific topic the text is addressing and write their notes down in the 'Know' column. When the student does not understand something within the text or has their own question about what the text is saying, they write it in the 'Want to Know' column. And finally, when a student has finished the reading and has identified the key pieces of information which they learned, they jot it down in the 'Learned' column. This graphic organizer has similarities to before-reading activities and after-reading activities.
Listed below are respectable, educational websites which offer free printable templates of graphic organizers:Houghton Mifflin HarcourtEducation Placehttp://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/Teacher Visionhttp://www.teachervision.fen.com/graphic-organizers/printable/6293.htmlReadWriteThinkhttp://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/Scholastichttp://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2983 Graphic organizers can be employed to help students follow the plot of a novel, figure out the definition of a word or even decipher figurative language. In Palmer and Brooks' article “Reading until the Cows Come Home,” graphic organizers are listed by the National Reading Panel as a great way to interpret figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, hyperboles, and idioms. “”These strategies include comprehension monitoring, cooperative learning, using graphic and semantic organizers, question answering, question generating and summarizing” (2004). For some students, just being able to visually make connections between past knowledge and what they are learning can be extremely helpful.
The use of graphic organizers in the classroom is a great tool for students of all reading abilities. Graphic organizers not only help students keep their notes looking neat, it also helps them to sort through bundles of information in a text and pick out only the important bits of information worth noting. In the article "Unlocking Text Features for Determining Importance in Expository Text: A Strategy for Struggling Readers," Bluestein speaks about the important clues students should look for while engaging in a text such as time-lines, photographs, dates, bold words, and summarizing sentences. If students can pick out the important information AND construct a graphic organizer, they will learn and understand the material better than just taking notes alone. By teaching our students to pick out important information and by showing them how to organize this information, we will have afforded them useful information they can use for the rest of their lives when analyzing any genre of text.
The use of graphic organizers in the classroom is not a new idea. Many teachers in all content areas use this simple tool to help students with their reading comprehension. Graphic organizers, like students, come in all kinds of shapes and sizes; however, it is up to the teacher to discover the type that works best with each student. Here are a few examples of the variety of graphic
-Venn Diagram
-Word Chart
-Cause and Effect
-Timeline
-Sequencing
-Spider Map
-KWL Chart
Each of these organizers are easy to find and print from a multitude of websites.
In the article, "The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words" authors Sharon Pitcher, Gilda Martinez, Elizabeth Dicembre, Darlene Fewster and Montana McCormick investigated adolescent literacy with emphasis of English-language learners, special education, secondary education, parent involvment, and curriculum development. Their article displays case studies of seven individuals in middle school class settings from urban and suburban schools. Each child was uniquely different in their needs and deficiencies in regards to literacy and each student was provided specialized instruction from a reading clinic. One commonality I found was that the instructors had each student use a Graphic Organizer to help them clarify and retain information. For example, Andrew was enrolled in 8th grade and had problems reading since 1st grade. Andrew read below grade level and stuggled greatly with comprehension of the text. The authors discovered: "In the reading clinic, Andrew learned comprehension strategies using sticky notes and visual organizers. His comprehension improved during his first experience in the reading clinic, which he was able to demonstrate when he returned."
So what can today's teachers and future educators take away from this? If you have a student in your classroom who is struggling with reading and comprehension, try using graphic organizers. The first few times, work closely with the student and guide them in using the organizer and then advance them to working on it alone. One of the best organizers I found is the KWL chart. This is a simplistic chart divided into three columns: Know, Want to Know, and Learned. The students read the text assigned to them and fill out the chart as they read. Before reading the text, the student is challenged to write down all the information they know about the specific topic the text is addressing and write their notes down in the 'Know' column. When the student does not understand something within the text or has their own question about what the text is saying, they write it in the 'Want to Know' column. And finally, when a student has finished the reading and has identified the key pieces of information which they learned, they jot it down in the 'Learned' column. This graphic organizer has similarities to before-reading activities and after-reading activities.
Listed below are respectable, educational websites which offer free printable templates of graphic organizers:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Graphic organizers can be employed to help students follow the plot of a novel, figure out the definition of a word or even decipher figurative language. In Palmer and Brooks' article “Reading until the Cows Come Home,” graphic organizers are listed by the National Reading Panel as a great way to interpret figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, hyperboles, and idioms. “”These strategies include comprehension monitoring, cooperative learning, using graphic and semantic organizers, question answering, question generating and summarizing” (2004). For some students, just being able to visually make connections between past knowledge and what they are learning can be extremely helpful.
The use of graphic organizers in the classroom is a great tool for students of all reading abilities. Graphic organizers not only help students keep their notes looking neat, it also helps them to sort through bundles of information in a text and pick out only the important bits of information worth noting. In the article "Unlocking Text Features for Determining Importance in Expository Text: A Strategy for Struggling Readers," Bluestein speaks about the important clues students should look for while engaging in a text such as time-lines, photographs, dates, bold words, and summarizing sentences. If students can pick out the important information AND construct a graphic organizer, they will learn and understand the material better than just taking notes alone. By teaching our students to pick out important information and by showing them how to organize this information, we will have afforded them useful information they can use for the rest of their lives when analyzing any genre of text.
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